


Monsoon Season

by nonamebut



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Existence of Demigods, Fluff, Getting Back Together, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, Love Poems, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25632397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonamebut/pseuds/nonamebut
Summary: I’m always writing about our rainy town, the strong scent of rain.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44
Collections: The Markhyuck Zine Round One





	Monsoon Season

**Author's Note:**

> The poems (and their translations) in this fic are referenced from a certain 2018 kdrama but the plot of that show and this fic are completely unrelated! Both main characters just like poems and that's all you need to know :)
> 
> To the prompter of this fic - it's more slice of lifey than magical (mostly because Donghyuck's just a mortal?) but I hope you still like how it turned out <3

**At Seonunsa Temple**  
by Choi Young Mi

It may be hard for a flower to bloom,  
but it withers away in an instant.  
Without the time to take a careful look,  
without the time to think of you,  
it withers away in an instant.  
Just like when you first bloomed within my heart.  
I wish I could forget you just as quickly.  
You smile from afar.  
You go over the mountain.  
It may be easy for a flower to wither,  
but it takes forever to forget it.  
It truly takes forever.

A complete play through of Carly Rae Jepsen’s EMOTION album finishes in the time it takes for Donghyuck’s mother to call him back.

“Told you she’d call after dinner!” Hyunjin says, from all the way on the other side of their shared unit.

Their room is hella small, so that isn’t really saying much. But her voice is loud enough that the first thing his mom says is _Ah, Hyunjin? Is that you?_

Donghyuck still rolls his eyes even though neither of the women can see him being petty. He burns holes into Hyunjin’s pajama-clad back as he greets his mother, laying the aegyo on real thick.

None of that works, by the way. To the surprise of absolutely no one, Hyunjin ignores all of Donghyuck’s faces and keeps on painting her toenails a very innocent pastel color.

What stings more than the acetone, though, is the quiet way his mom forgoes all of Donghyuck’s inquiries, ranging from the innocent _you already ate, right?_ to the more loaded _did you take the new medicine?_ All in favor of asking him if he got to the city safely.

It makes him feel kind of stupid. Donghyuck punches the nearest—and _softest_ —thing. Poor Olaf gets his carrot nose shoved up his stuffed face.

“Of course I did. You heard Hyunjin, right? I’m all unpacked, set, and ready for school tomorrow.” Donghyuck says, shutting up for a brief moment when he hears footsteps rumbling through the static. “So don’t worry, okay? And call me back sooner! You know I can’t pick up if I’m taking night classes!”

 _Is that who I—?_ A wince. _Yes, it’s your brother!!!!_

Even though Donghyuck is already holding the phone away from his ear, he can still hear all of the excitable inquiries his siblings are yelling over each other to ask first.

See, there’s another reason why Donghyuck barely got through his brief visit home. The whole health scare aside, obviously—even though that definitely took Donghyuck’s heart and shredded it to absolute pieces.

Look. With the new school term having started already, there was no way he would even consider dragging his cousin Hyunjin, or even his neighbor and long time best friend Hyeyeon, all the way back to their hometown.

So there was no buffer, no way for him to escape every question about _He Who Donghyuck Would Rather Not Be Named_ unscathed.

“Guys, you’re so loud!” The whining Donghyuck pulls this time is a hundred percent authentic. “My head hurts! I’m hanging up now. Bye~”

The cute cacophony fades out to a _tsk, tsk!_ (No, literally. She actually says that.) Donghyuck looks up to find that Hyunjin has turned around to face in his direction; she waggles her yellow toes at him.

“Got something to say, Kim?”

“Oh, nothing… Nothing! Just like you have no answers for your very valid gremlin siblings.”

She fake stretches, somehow maneuvering her whole body from her bed to Donghyuck’s. The way she curls around Donghyuck makes it really hard not to pet her head like they do to the stray cats at school.

Kim Hyunjin is _evil_ , trying to get him off guard like this.

“Not at you taking the side of your sworn enemies. Clown.”

Donghyuck squirms when Hyunjin doesn’t say anything, gently pressing her chin on Donghyuck’s shoulder. In the silence, the opening notes of _Boy Problems_ swell.

“I just think that their questions are very—well. Innocent. You told them you’re still best friends, so of course they’d still ask after him.”

“I just think,” Donghyuck says after a while. “That, I don’t know. Yeah, we’re still friends.”

A hum, just to let know she’s still listening. Donghyuck gives in and pats down Hyunjin’s head.

“But I’d rather just avoid talking about him when it’s very clear they still see him in the same way? And I don’t want to talk about him in the way I used to.”

 _What’s worse?_ Carly Rae croons, her melody the only honest sound in the whole room. _Losin’ a lover or losin’ your best friend?_

Hyunjin sighs, reciting the next lyrics like a damn spoken word poem. “What's worse is when you discover… you're not good for each other.”

After silently agreeing that Carly Rae sunbaenim really _does_ get it, the two cousins continue to listen to her most iconic album until their Bluetooth speaker runs out of battery.

Ten minutes. It takes ten whole minutes before Donghyuck cracks.

Everyone clowns him about it whenever he retells this particular story. Everyone, every time—to a few hours later, when Donghyuck whisper shouts the details to his mother hoping to God that Hyunjin wouldn’t wake up, to even a few years later, at the unexpectedly weepy reception of his own wedding.

Everyone clowns him about it, and every time he defends himself with the very same thing.

_I just didn’t expect Hades to smile, alright?_

Hades smiles the same way he did all those years ago. He looks so free and unrestrained that it takes Donghyuck a few seconds to smile back.

“I’m really glad you’re with us, Donghyuck.” Hades gasps a little to himself; he’s just as dramatic as Donghyuck remembers.

“Oh! Is it okay if I still call you Donghyuck here? You can also just call me uncle if you’d like.” More giggling. “It’s just going to be us after all.”

Donghyuck winces a little. It’s not like Hades doesn’t know, right? That he and Mark are—and this is to no offense to all the immortals he owes his very mortal life to—very much ancient history.

Thankfully, Hades simply keeps smiling and takes Donghyuck’s silence in stride. Fills in the gaps with a gentle giggle and a wacky waggling of those cursed eyebrows.

“Don’t worry. It’ll only be awkward if you make it so.”

“… easy for you to say, sir.”

A sigh. “That’s really weird, coming from you. But I suppose we all grow up at some point, huh?”

Jolting forward, Hades takes brisk steps towards the floor-to-ceiling windows. Donghyuck follows along, a soft inquisitive noise tugging from the back of his throat.

“Even so! Can’t take back all those years I’ve watched you grow up, can I?”

The setting sun hits the slew of droplets in such a way that Hades is cast in such a dramatic light. It reminds Donghyuck of the patriarchal figure in the melo he’s marathoning with Hyunjin and their college gang.

Still. He’ll give Hades that. But why does he have this nagging feeling that they’re talking about two wholly different things? Out of depth, Donghyuck lets himself try one more time. “… but, even if this is just for school, is this still not a professional space? Or something like that?”

Of course, because Donghyuck’s life is full of serendipitous timings, this is the moment Mark Lee enters once more, stumbling into his father’s office with that stupid, stupid smile on his face.

“Dad! You didn’t tell me you were accepting interns this summer.”

Donghyuck doesn’t want to turn away from the window.

“Markie! I wasn’t going to, but I heard that there were some scheduling mishaps between some universities…”

“I, wait—Donghyuck?”

Plastering on the biggest smile he can muster, Donghyuck shuffles around and faces the one person he was hoping to avoid for the entire duration of his summer internship.

And preferably for the rest of his life, but Donghyuck’s kind of getting away from himself there.

“Hey. Mark.” Haha. Mark’s supposed to be the one fumbling for words here. “Stuff happened and I guess I’m going to be working for your dad for a while!”

“Oh.” There goes that frown again. Gods fucking damn it.

“Well, I’m glad your application got accepted somewhere after—I heard what happened.”

Hades clears his throat. Donghyuck has never been more mortified and relieved at the very same time.

“Well, I think it’s about time we get started. I’ll see you at home, Mark.”

“Actually, dad? I was going to wait—”

“Ah, of course, sir! Can’t wait to start working. It was nice seeing you too, Mark.”

For what it’s worth… Donghyuck really means this one. Always does.

Mark, surely, can tell. Because he smiles in that trademarked helpless way of his as he gives Donghyuck a shy little wave. “You too, Donghyuck. I’ll see you at lunch this Saturday?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Donghyuck notices how Hades lingers at the door of his office. There are no more well-timed coughs.

“… Yeah, see you then.”

“And that’s it? That’s all you said?”

Donghyuck wiggles on his spinny chair. He considers being funny, drawing out his reply and withdrawing all the juicy details.

There’s an incessant pinging coming from behind him; Discord user **Heejin <3** can send all the Face Screaming in Fear emojis all she wants, but there’s no way he’s humoring a traitor who ditched their weekly drama binge. At least Hyeyeon was just late, and for valid reasons!

That’s who he addresses now, deciding on the lesser evil. “Yeah, we said bye and then Hades showed me around some more. Then I did some desk work.”

“Boring!”

Hyunjin’s voice is muffled by her blanket. She goes on about something else, about how nothing’s going to happen now that Donghyuck won’t make the first move. “Can’t believe we stopped paused right in the middle of a Jung Haein scene for this?”

Donghyuck throws Olaf at what he thinks is his cousin’s head. “Shut up, Hyunjin. We paused because we were waiting for Hyeyeon!”

“Wow! Sorry for attending a different college from you guys?”

Looking up from where he’s carefully going through their fast-food delivery compilation on the floor, Seungmin allows himself to be temporarily perceived. It’s nice of him to do this whenever shit’s about to go down.

He asks, so very blithely, “weren’t you the one who wanted Hyeyeon to come faster so Donghyuck could, quote spill the tea end quote?”

Annoying whining echoes around the room. Hyunjin is just about done complaining about how everyone automatically picks on her whenever her girlfriend is gone when Hyeyeon gasps in that knowing little way of hers.

Gods fucking damn it.

“Donghyuck’s distracting us again!” An accusing finger takes up Donghyuck’s vision. “What happened after?”

See, Donghyuck could tell them all about how Hades was so kind, kinder than he deserved. He could reenact the way he nearly bumped right into Mark on the way out of the office, or the way his textbook slipped out of his grasp like he was some stupid ass drama protagonist.

Mark and his stupid, stupid smile… Donghyuck could talk about it for days.

“No, I did not bump into Mark outside of the office,” Donghyuck says, making Hyunjin groan about how his life is, like, the opposite of makjang.

The S in Seungmin totally stands for sweetheart, because it’s in this moment that Seungmin nudges his foot with his own and gives him an encouraging smile. “That makes sense, though. Didn’t it start raining hardcore around the time you got off?”

“Yeah, I was stranded in the office for a while.”

More Discord notifications pop off in the background, letting Donghyuck know that **Heejin <3** is giving him a big F. Hyunjin surfaces from the pillow fort she’s constructed on her bed in order to very publicly and emphatically pout.

Hyeyeon finally wrestles out of her raincoat and falls to her assigned spot on the floor with a soft oof. “That sucks, Duckie. Rain isn’t so romantic in real life, huh?”

“Uh, sure.” Super smooth, all casual. Donghyuck spins around in his chair.

“… So do you guys wanna continue watching or what?”

“Let me call for some delivery first. Dinner’s on me tonight!”

The girls cheer and finally, Donghyuck’s in the clear.

He really didn’t want to talk about how he and Mark and Hades waited around for the downpour to stop. If the interaction confused the hell out of him, what more his friends?

By the time Saturday rolls around, Donghyuck still doesn’t know how to make sense of all the Mark Lee that is now taking up his life.

The good thing is that it seems like Mark is acting like nothing in their dynamic has changed at all. When Jisung grills him on what he’s been up to lately, Mark rambles on about his coworkers at the studio and all these other anecdotes that embarrassingly sound like a song Donghyuck has heard before.

Mark doesn’t mention anything about Donghyuck at all until Jeno asks about the internship. Which leads to the not so good thing—Donghyuck also doesn’t know how to go about interacting in the same space at all without being an obvious dumb fuck.

He feels someone kick at his feet under the table, and Donghyuck looks up from where he was counting the specks of chocolate floating atop his milkshake. Renjun smiles serenely at him before asking, “How about you, Donghyuck?”

“Uh, yeah?” Big brain reply, Lee. Donghyuck glances around furtively to find everyone staring at him with similar expressions of amusement. He definitely does not linger on the quirk of Mark’s lips.

“Was it awkward?” Jisung asks, hums a little thoughtfully. “Wait, it probably was. I mean, I think I’d probably perish if I had to work for my ex’s dad.”

Jeno coughs on a big gulp of fries.

Ha, yeah. Same.

All that desperate hacking is loud enough to Chenle’s attention, pulling him away from where he’s scrubbing down a table with a shit-eating grin. “Eyyy, what’s going on? Who are we gossiping about now?”

“Donghyuck and his internship with Mr. Hades,” says Jaemin, not missing a beat despite being preoccupied with capturing Jeno’s wheezing face on his story. “Don’t worry, Jisung just brought it up. You didn’t miss anything yet.”

Thumping a fist to his chest and throwing his BFF a peace sign, Chenle says, “Always taking one for the team! Thanks homie.”

Jisung rolls his eyes and mumbles something about all his hyungs being useless, but the laughter in his voice gives him away.

“Ugh, you say that and expect me to still humor you? The nerve of this kid.” Donghyuck reaches out to pinch Jisung’s cheeks. This, at least, is something he knows how to do.

“And for the record, it wasn’t even that bad. It was actually really fun. Mr. Hades has always been really nice to me.”

“Yeah, dad’s always liked you.”

Everyone listens listlessly to the slurping sounds Mark makes as he finishes his own milkshake. Donghyuck, in the privacy of his mind, wishes for sweet death.

“Geez. Sometimes it feels like nothing has changed at all.” Jisung says, “Why did you guys even break up then, if it’s going to be like this?”

Chenle quite literally freezes in his attempt to squeeze into the booth next to Jisung, all wide-eyed. In a hushed voice he says, “Is that allowed?”

As if to add insult to injury, he’s looking right at Mark as he asks.

Over the sound of more gasps for air, Jaemin yells, “Heck yeah! Normalize talking about breakups!”

“It’s not even your breakup, Jaem.”

“Don’t act like you aren’t curious about them too Junnie—!”

For all of Donghyuck’s attempts in his refusal to perceive Mark today, the older boy is making it really, really hard not to with all his—all his… him. Whatever he is, that allows him to giggle and go, “haha, it’s okay!”

“Is it?” Jeno makes that trademark ehh sound of his. Forever a shooter for peace, may the Gods bless him.

When Donghyuck finally turns to look at Mark properly, his eyes catch on the flush creeping up his neck. Even when feeling uncomfortable, this dumb ass continues to smile—only Mark Lee.

Donghyuck presses their thighs together briefly in a moment of solidarity.

“I mean, it is, isn’t it?” Mark’s glance at Donghyuck is just as brief, before he straightens in his seat beside him and smiles even wider for the rest of their friends to see. “It was a mutual thing, anyway.”

“No bad blood here, losers. Nice try though.”

Jisung whistles. Donghyuck still can’t figure out why he’s always been so weirdly insistent; he’s not even the Aphrodite kid in the gang. Or the Ares kid, for that matter.

“To be fair, if there was any at all, we would have heard a bunch of songs about it by now.”

“You know it used to be mad love!” Chenle sings, making everyone around the table laugh. Then his boss shouts for him, and everyone laughs once more as he scrambles out of the booth and gets back to work.

Before anymore interrogation happens, Renjun steers the topic of discussion towards general school shenanigans again (probably because of his intolerance for bullshit, but Donghyuck is thankful anyway) and they all fall back into the steady rhythm of conversation.

Belatedly, Mark presses against Donghyuck, an echo of the comfort Donghyuck had hoped to give before. The action makes Donghyuck run in circles in his mind, thinking about what Mark had so casually said about them. A mutual thing, huh?

Some things really do stay the same. Donghyuck finds himself relying on Mark’s kindness today, too.

Atop his desk, Donghyuck’s phone lights up for the gazillionth time that day. MARK LEE sent him another photo. Knowing him, it’s probably some English meme he stole from Johnny’s Facebook feed.

Anyway, what Donghyuck means to say by this is—the judgemental stare he gets from Seungmin is well deserved. But he’s not about to admit that out loud, obviously.

“Are you going to get that or what?” whispers Seungmin when Professor Kim reaches the other end of the classroom in his frenetic lecturing pace.

“Chill, it’s just some texts. I can get to them after class. And stop peeping at my notifs!”

Seungmin huffs, taps his pen on his yellow pad. He grumbles on about how Donghyuck isn’t even paying attention but more or less returns to adjusting his meticulously color-coded notes without anymore complaint.

The lone phone, smack dab in the middle of his desk, lights up again. Donghyuck hesitates for a moment, then turns it around to face down.

“So what can we learn from the myth of Hades and Persephone?” Professor Kim’s voice rushes down, a stream of thought guiding the class through yet another dissection of the age-old actions made by Gods that double as modern day parental figures.

Somehow, he always manages to make it not as embarrassing as it really is. He’s Donghyuck’s favorite for a reason.

“The cyclical nature of the seasons?” Seungmin offers when no one else wonders aloud.

“Well yes, of course. But that’s not all.” Professor Kim lights up and Donghyuck is still thinking about Mark and how easy he makes it look—how he’s always there, lingering in his heart, a phantom first love.

“It’s also about balance. The cycle itself exists because we can’t have life without death.”

Donghyuck is no stranger to speaking up in class but he surprises himself with how much he means what he says. Even Seungmin gives him another look, as if to say _wow, someone’s not being a smart ass today_.

Professor Kim stops in his pacing and gives out a thoughtful hum. “Well, that’s definitely one way you can put it.”

Seungmin glances over at Donghyuck again, wide-eyed. “Is that allowed?”

Donghyuck smothers a giggle into his palm. He peers over Seungmin’s shoulder to see he already started writing today’s main points in permanent ink; Professor Kim is Donghyuck’s favorite for the same reasons he’s definitely not Seungmin’s.

“Actually—that’s such an interesting, though sad, way to put it. I’ll talk about what I originally taught students later—” here Donghyuck nudges Seungmin good-naturedly, whispers a quick _you don’t need to rewrite your notes!_ “—but I’d like to pursue that thought, Donghyuck. Thank you.”

“I’d like to invite everyone to reflect: how do you keep the balance in your life? What are the things you give up to live the life you want?”

Donghyuck looks down again, watches Seungmin watch him out of the corner of his eye.

“As heroes, sons of Gods…” Professor Kim trails off until Donghyuck looks up from his phone, catches his gaze and holds it captive. “… and those gifted with the Sight, we have certain responsibilities tied to our fates. Maybe not all of us will live a life so eventful that our children will write poems and songs about it, but we will all live out our own seasons just the same.”

On the lonely desk, on his professor’s kind face—lights up. It’s one or the other. Spring blooming above, winter abounding below.

That’s what it means, the balance. Nothing in this world ever bleeds for no reason.

Just the same. Donghyuck knows how his story goes.

“Did you get that video I sent you?” Mark asks, his voice cutting through the insistent rain. “It reminded me of you, haha.”

“I did. I watched it after class.”

In the background, Hades greets all his employees a good night, walking in a straight line away from where the two of them are whispering in the cubicle at the farthest end. Donghyuck shifts in his seat. “It cheered me up a lot. It was really cute, hyung.”

The windows are casting a weird light again, but instead of making him look aloof and mysterious the way Hades had all those days ago, it makes Mark look—well. Soft. Snuggly.

“I’m glad! That’s what we like to hear.” Mark slides his chair even closer, the quiet squeaking of the wheels ceasing when their elbows kiss. “I was really, really, really happy when you sent me that poem, so. Man, I can’t believe you even remembered that…”

Laughing airily, Donghyuck waves a hand in what he hopes comes across as light dismissal. Mark and his poems and his words—maybe Donghyuck shouldn’t have reminded him of the sticky notes Mark used to sneakily slap onto Donghyuck’s books, his clothes.

And it’s not that Donghyuck is not sincere, or that Mark thinks more than he should in that pretty head of his. But over time Mark had spontaneously pressed one too many love letters a little too close to Donghyuck’s heart.

“Oh, that? … I already forgot what I sent!”

Mark grumbles cutely. “Well, it meant a lot. That you remembered, and that you thought of me.”

“It’s no problem,” says Donghyuck as he pointedly scrolls through his phone. Oh, lookie, all his other friends who are just as equally important to him as Mark is. “You send me all kinds of stuff all the time, too.”

“Actually, if it’s okay—there’s actually something I wanted to ask you for a while.”

He likes Hyeyeon’s selca a little too aggressively and he feels Mark flinch beside him. “Just ask, Mark.”

“Uh, fuck. I’m just gonna ask straight up.” Mark takes a breath, and Donghyuck feels the pages upon pages of poems and words and letters flutter open in his chest. “Are you seeing anyone right now?”

“No?” The answer—the question? Donghyuck is so fucking lost—comes out tiny and alarmed and very much like the pudu in the video that started this mess.

“Haha, alright.” Nodding to himself, Mark fights off what Donghyuck knows to be his most dopey, pleased smile. “That’s good.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Mark jumps again in his seat, and this time the movements bring their chairs apart briefly. Call it instinct or whatever unconscious desire Donghyuck does not want to unpack right now, but Donghyuck tugs Mark back in and only lets go of his wrist when Mark is looking at him again.

Slow and soft, as if to not spook Donghyuck, Mark says, “It just means it’s good.”

“Boys, it’s time to lock up!”

Hades sticks his head into the cubicle and Donghyuck wishes he didn’t know him well enough, to be able to recognize that smile, too.

“Oh!” Mark points out the window, to the distance where the sun has long set and the clouds have taken a rest. “We should go before the rain starts up again.”

“Exactly! I have to take a quick call, though, so you kids go on ahead. No need to turn off all the lights.”

Donghyuck blinks at the space where Hades was, and Mark laughs at how pitiful he must look.

“You know, even if it was still raining—I still have your umbrella.”

Dear Gods. What is he on about now?

Mark pulls Donghyuck up by the wrist and his feet take him by autopilot to the exit at the point.

“Um, yeahhh, you must have forgotten about it, but the funny thing is that I kept holding on to it?”

“You have… my umbrella.”

There’s that dopey ass grin again. “I kept trying to find the right timing to bring it up to you, but now that we’ve started talking more I guess I forgot?”

“You are so weird!” Donghyuck’s fingers tighten around the straps of his backpack. “What am I do to with you, hyung?”

Mark giggles. “I’ll remember to give it to you next time!”

“Whatever,” says Donghyuck, even though he means anything but such a throwaway thought. Nothing like the spontaneous visits Mark always times right when Donghyuck’s hours at his father’s company end.

Mark mimics in that obnoxious way of his, says, “Whatever!” He breaks character once more to laugh, loud and big and it’s my laugh, Donghyuck’s lizard brain supplies stupidly.

“I’ll walk you back after we eat, okay? You must be super hungry…”

Mark and his stupid words, Donghyuck and his sticky heart. The pages keep turning and turning—turning back, to retell a tale Donghyuck still holds close, still whispers to himself during nights most lonely.

But before Donghyuck was a lover, he was simply a dreamer. Donghyuck’s origin story isn’t something worthy enough to even jokingly call a myth, but for someone who is as mercurial as he is, he’s pretty glad that he has an aspiration he can fall back on.

Ambition is something he possesses in spades, after all.

“So I heard from your professor that you were supposed to be interning under Apollo?” Hades asks from where he’s sitting on the floor, smooshed between the cubicle wall and Donghyuck’s spinny chair.

“… Yeah, some time ago I was considering pursuing clinical psych instead of going into the industry like I originally planned.”

“Oh?” Mark peers over the monitor in the cubicle across them. “I thought you were always sure about pursuing industrial psych. Or at least something that didn’t make psych seem so, uh, pathological.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Like, psychology is also about improving our strengths and stuff. It’s not just about diagnosing mental illness.” Mark throws a finger gun in Donghyuck’s direction. “Hey, I still remember all those TED Talks we watched together on my old iPad!”

“Wow. You’re right... on both that point on psych, and how that negative part of it is not really me.”

Donghyuck fakes a cough so he can at least cover the bottom half of his flaming face. He doesn’t quite like the look Hades is sporting right now. “It’s just that some time ago, I had an early life crisis, I guess? It also didn’t help that most of the professors at school are mostly doctors, so.”

The sword pen in Mark’s hand is mesmerizing as it spins and spins and spins. Donghyuck can tell he wants to ask some more, so it’s a pleasant surprise when he simply says, “Well, it’s Apollo’s loss, in the end!”

Hades pats Donghyuck’s knee assuredly. “I think everyone in your course considers interning at Apollo’s famed hospital at some point in their academic career. Especially when it comes to people like you.”

Yeah, people like him, huh? Donghyuck may not possess any divine blood. But he’s got ambition and (to make a joke to make his mortal neighbor Johnny proud) a vision to match.

“Sometimes I think—it must have been scary, to grow up seeing things the way you did, all alone.” Mark is just rambling now, back to staring attentively at his screen yet still letting his mouth run no filter on. His big, bulky glasses reflect what’s probably a HSMTMTS episode. “I think choosing to see the good in people rather than the bad… you are a lot braver than the rest of us.”

Amazing, how Mark can have no idea what the fuck he’s saying, but still somehow manages to get all the words right. Donghyuck coughs again.

“I don’t completely understand what you just said, Markie,” says Hades good-naturedly. “But I do think that using your Sight to bring out people’s potential in the industrial setting is a very admirable thing.”

It’s a very nice way to spin Donghyuck’s spiral towards angst, angst, and angst as he barrels towards his imminent graduation. He’s also thankful they don’t bring up the family issues that led him into interning at this company in the first place.

“I think so as well,” is what Donghyuck says instead, allowing himself a small smile. “It would probably better for me, too, if I didn’t work at a hospital. I like the helping people part—and not so much the death.”

Donghyuck realizes belatedly that he’s not as cute when it comes to running his mouth. Hades pats his knee again awkwardly and starts asking about the other branches of psych Donghyuck could have pursued.

Later, when Donghyuck finally looks up from his half-hearted conversation with Hades, he finds that Mark has already been looking at him. Waiting for him to notice.

 _What?_ Donghyuck mouths.

Mark doesn’t say anything in return, just lets the tiny curl of his lips do all the talking for him.

And Donghyuck—Donghyuck chooses to see it for what it is. For now, maybe it’s alright.

Donghyuck smiles back.

So the pages keep turning—his heart fluttering open, open, open. With every smile Mark sends Donghyuck’s way it gets harder to tell all the summers apart. The warmth, the light, everything in his heart reads the same way it did many seasons ago.

Even then. Even when Donghyuck finds himself retelling the oldest story in the universe, why does it feel like something has changed? That something is changing?

“You look different,” his mother says in greeting when he visits home a little before midterms. “Did you dye your hair some vague shade of dark brown again?”

Donghyuck laughs, playing along with the running gag. “You noticed!”

He reaches out to wrap an arm around her shoulders to make sure she doesn’t fall and give them all a scare again. Together, they walk down the winding streets back home.

Conversations with his mother always run through the same beats; there are no unexpected turns of phrase, no twists that he has not already foreseen. It makes keeping the promise that he, Hyeyeon, and Hyunjin made when they climbed onto the bus at the crack of dawn, a million times easier to keep.

Because the best part of his mother knowing him better than anyone else in the world is that she doesn’t push the kinds of questions Donghyuck would rather not be forced to voice an answer to.

At the very least, there won’t be any awkwardly posed questions about Hyeyeon and her academic choices, or about Hyunjin and wanting to date someone who literally can’t give her a family—although he’ll probably have to brace himself for those very inquiries when all their families gather together at the Lee house for a big ass dinner.

Instead, mother asks the easier things. What she wants to know is way more mundane than Donghyuck expects, even, and it takes him a few seconds to think of a satisfactory reply.

Like, how are your professors treating you? Or are you enjoying the city? As they walk into the home Donghyuck grew up in, he fills her in on the story thus far. It’s the story the way Donghyuck wants to tell it: _yes, I am still the perfect student, the perfect son._ Never wayward.

They try to be quiet to try to keep the moment of peace to themselves for as long as possible, but a sudden thunder rattles through the floor as the rest of the Lee kids run down the steps and bolt in through the back door.

“Oof! Guys, let me breathe.”

It’s impossible to harbor hard feelings against these people who expect so much—almost too much?—out of him when they are able to give cuddle pile smooshes this good. If his family had to be one or the other, Donghyuck would always choose to see them as the better half of his fate, the flowers he wants to give life to in the spring.

He adjusts to the warm weight crowding all over him—on the floor, in the moment. And in general, in life.

“I missed you guys so much. It’s not fun playing adult in the city,” says Donghyuck before his siblings start attacking him with questions. He needs his emotional support lesbians (see: Hyeyeon and Hyunjin) present when these kids try to slyly ask him how his internship is doing.

He’s already reaching for the souvenirs he’s brought back. “Did you guys miss me too?”

His mother cheekily takes the brand new raincoat that Donghyuck dangles before her before she says, “Not as much as they missed—”

“—my presents!” Donghyuck screeches. “I get it, you guys just want the benefits of my hard-earned coin.”

As expected, everyone laughs.

Jump forward, skip a few chapters. Open up a few Saturdays later.

Or even better—flip back. Rewind to a familiar beat, an old song Donghyuck’s heart still knows all the words to. It’s like a story within a story, the way he falls for all the same things.

For both Mark and Donghyuck, there’s always going to be more love to be had. (That’s not a spoiler.)

When Renjun tells them, “we’ll meet you guys at our apartment,” it sounds a lot like the excuse he threw their way all those years ago. During the days when all Donghyuck wanted was to get Mark alone.

 _It’s a coincidence_ , Donghyuck insists in the privacy of his mind. _Don’t read into any of it._

There is no romance in the way they walk back, hands brushing. Nothing heart racing in how Mark races him to the door of the complex and doesn’t let him win.

It’s not like habit can be helped, can it? That’s something Donghyuck struggles to remember: that some other important things must remain whether they’re in love or not.

It’s in the sureness of Mark’s shoulders, the teasing tilt to Donghyuck’s grin. In all versions of this story, they’re always good friends. (Best friends. And that’s fine. It’s enough.)

With every jab Donghyuck makes he hopes Mark doesn’t get the wrong idea, or worse, gets nostalgic over the reminder of what they were like before. Donghyuck doesn’t think he can bear a sentimental Mark today. With his stupid smile and his stupid words and his stupid love.

It’s already hard managing his own resurfacing feelings. He’d rather deal with it on his own—this awkward, adolescent love of his.

“Are you really going to make me sit on the floor?” asks Mark after being pushed off Renjun’s bed with a good hard _shove_.

The starfish smack dab on the center of the tiny mattress whines. “I’m tired, hyung. Were you the one who took three exams?”

“Huh. You’re right.”

Donghyuck forces out a snort at how genuine Mark sounds, and pushes his face in the crook of his own arm.

A good move, in sudden hindsight, since a gentle hand ruffles through his hair and lingers on the top of his heated head.

“You did great today.”

In the privacy of his mind, Donghyuck can admit it: maybe he’s scared. It’s one thing to let go of the past, to move on and close a chapter of his own life. These are all things Donghyuck has learned to do, in the time between now and then.

But there’s always going to be another side to the story.

Mark’s words, his smile. His love that has endured. His love that is, quite simply, enduring.

When Donghyuck peeks over his arm, he is not surprised to catch Mark staring at him.

“Hey, now. Don’t fall asleep on me.”

“I’m tired.”

“We could do something.”

“Like what?” Donghyuck laughs, but the sound dies when Mark sits up on the floor and lays his head right next to Donghyuck’s own.

Cute.

Even now, Mark flusters. His hands flutter about Donghyuck’s face.

Donghyuck bites his lip to keep from smiling; he fails when Mark unabashedly tracks the movement. “Eager, are we?”

“Do you ever shut up?” Mark mumbles back. His eyes skitter up, up, up to meet Donghyuck’s gaze. Mark has never looked into his eyes long enough for Donghyuck to see this—this strange burning intensity that makes Donghyuck think of stars aflame.

Mark ends up answering his own question as he leans in, slow and obvious, enough for Donghyuck to back away if he wanted.

And then, and then. In Donghyuck’s chest, it flutters.

Thud, thud, _thud_ goes the door. Jaemin’s voice filters in.

“… Please tell me y’all are decent.”

Donghyuck wipes his lips with the back of his trembling hand. “Shut up, Jaemin.”

And this is how it’s always going to be. It’s one or the other again, but this time Donghyuck is not as wide-eyed of a dreamer.

He stares at the report on screen for a few more seconds before sighing. Bandaged fingers twitch over the keyboard. Light dances behind his eyelids.

It still startles him, how the new personal assistants bad mouth their bosses so obnoxiously, their voices fading away as they walk past Donghyuck’s little cubicle. The bold bite of expensive coffee that thickens in the air is something he can’t escape from even in here.

This is the challenge, to see the balance; that much, at least, is what Donghyuck has learned.

This is how love wilts in reverse: it starts with the straightening of the spine, the faint crack of the back as Donghyuck quite literally reorients himself. He opens his eyes to the wide, wide windows and feels the afternoon sun warm against the smile blooming on his lips.

Above, above, above. On the corner of his textbook is a neon green sticky note. Donghyuck takes a good look at it for the first time today.

 _Even the most beautiful flowers trembled as they blossomed_ — _and as they shook, their stalks grew firm._ Even if it’s not a love poem in the strictest sense, Donghyuck still sees the love in it. Even today, too, Mark’s messy scrawl reminds him to be kind to himself.

So stupid. But also—so sweet.

Donghyuck laughs at the drawing smack dab at the center of the paper. A rough sketch of a tiny, yawning thing. The yellow highlighter shading tips Donghyuck off on what it’s supposed to be.

“… My cutie.”

He runs a thumb over mini Mark. So overcome with this feeling held captive in his throat, Donghyuck can’t even bring himself to mentally poke fun at Mark’s awkward earnesty, or to even question the possible furry implications of it all.

Donghyuck peeks over the white dividers briefly before he presses his lips onto the long dried ink.

For once, he does allow himself to feel just a smidge of embarrassment. For just a moment! But then Donghyuck smooshes his cheeks together and nods to himself.

This time, Donghyuck is going to get it right. He wants to meet Mark halfway if they both really want—this. Whatever this little thing is that brings back Mark and his sweet words and his sweet poems and his sweet love.

 _Where is there a love which is never shaken?_ Oh, Donghyuck has always known the answer.

He lets out a loud exhale and unlocks his phone. It opens to his conversation with **baby <3**.

“Huh.” Donghyuck had been too distracted by today’s workload to realize how Mark hasn’t texted him at all, barring the obligatory barrage of good morning texts.

He scrolls past Oh Boyoung’s _A Fresh Start_ and there it is, the time stamp confirming all his suspicions.

Peering past the dividers again, Donghyuck catches a wave of workers rushing out of the elevator.

Alright… maybe not going to chance any sneaky calls today.

That would probably be a little too forward on his part anyway. (And a lot more hubristic, considering how he was the one who called their relationship off in the first place.)

Instead, he rummages through the pile of papers on his desk until his fingers feel the familiar pointy plastic corner of his tupperware.

Donghyuck snaps a few pictures of neatly made sandwiches, stuffed very strategically in the container as to maximize the space. It’s the only thing he could both smuggle in and secretly eat in the office but he likes to think his top gourmet skills (trademark) more than make up for it.

 _Jealous?_ He asks Mark after sending a picture that best shows both the food and a very neon green sticky note peeking out under the container. _Ah, what a five-star meal~_

It doesn’t take long before the text is read, and Donghyuck feels a bit stupid for holding his breath in total YA Protagonist style.

_Oh, wait! Don’t eat yet Hahaha._

Huh?

_I’m hungryyyyy._

Well, if it means Mark’s going to get some food too and take a break from mixing a project Donghyuck knows has been bothering him more than usual—that’s all Donghyuck wants, really.

A few minutes later, Mark sends a pic of Taeyong manning the grill at that restaurant near their studio. _Ha! Hyung is treating me today._

Donghyuck snorts. It morphs into a softer giggle when his phone chimes a few more times with a bunch of goofy selcas. One of the last ones is taken from what’s supposed to be a very unflattering angle, but Mark still looks nice even when he stares down the low held camera.

Whether or not Donghyuck’s cheeks heat up is between him and the gods, thank you very much.

 _Want to see your face! :)_ Mark types so very innocently. The brat.

Donghyuck closes his eyes and presses the edge of his phone against his forehead.

“Donghyuck?”

A fellow intern whispers from the cubicle across him after he spends a good minute stewing in mature thoughts. “Are you okay?”

“Uhhhh. Kind of?” An awkward smile. “I think I’m just gonna go to the CR. Can you cover me real quick?”

Without waiting for an answer, he grabs his phone and powerwalks to the comfort room on the other side of the floor.

And, well. If he takes some very nice pictures of himself as a form of revenge—that’s also between him and the gods.

And Mark, who sends a simple _haha :) so handsome! <3_ several minutes after Donghyuck sits at his cubicle.

( _Did you eat well?_ Though Donghyuck really does want to know, Mark’s reply is a bit…)

It’s typical behavior—no one bats an eye when Professor Kim starts rushing through his Powerpoint, gesturing wildly as he pretty much starts rapping the rest of the content just to get the lecture wrapped up on time.

What’s not so typical is the way Hyunjin blows up Donghyuck’s phone with a bunch of cryptic texts.

Some of them are vaguely concerning. Most of them are homemade memes captioning a crying Heejin, very obviously taken from the 2Jin version of the great Markhyuck Summer Fight.

In other words: all of them are concerningly vague and none of them specifically address whatever Hyunjin’s freaking out about. Sneaking a look at Seungmin’s phone just barely peeking out of his backpack, Donghyuck notes how the only notifications his friend has are from the other Hyunjin. (Yes, yes, the Hwang boy.)

“I can’t even tell if she’s being serious or not?” Seungmin whispers when the messages don’t stop for several minutes. Donghyuck can tell he’s genuinely freaking out, but only by the slightly off-beat tapping of his pen.

When it comes to his friends, Donghyuck likes to think he knows them all pretty well. How to read their moods, how to accommodate them.

There’s only one thing Hyunjin could be spamming Donghyuck about. Not that Seungmin needs to know about his (Carly Rae voice) _Boy Problems_ right now; Donghyuck’s going to have to put a pin on how she could have possibly found out, too.

“The keyboard smashes probably mean it’s something positive. We’re cousins, we share the same brain cell. Or something like that. It’s basic biology, trust me on this.”

To all that bullshit, Seungmin gives Donghyuck a single nod.

How easily he agrees to it makes Donghyuck a bit annoyed—like hello? Does Seungmin think the _himbosity_ runs in the blood?—and he’s about to start whining about it when Seungmin gasps at the time stamp glowing at the top of the phone’s lock screen.

For the most part, the last part of the lecture goes along without anymore unwanted confrontation. Professor Kim just barely makes it to the last slide thanks to human alarm clock Seungmin, who has made a habit of warning their professor when fifteen minutes remain in their schedule.

And throughout the whole ordeal, the phone smack dab in the middle of Donghyuck’s desk keeps lighting up. Thankfully, Seungmin is way too invested in writing out the last of his notes to notice anymore.

“Hey, what do you want to eat?” asks Seungmin as he starts packing his things. “Gods, I wish our schedules didn’t run this late… if I keep going this long without eating I will simply perish, I think.”

Fingers a flurry over his phone, Donghyuck half-heartedly says, “Hey, you’re the one who has a longer break than me, dummy. If you complain one more time I’ll eat you instead~”

See, here’s another typical thing: the Hyuckmin post-class ritual that entails the two of them shrugging on their backpacks before going out for dinner, braving the unpredictable weather outside campus.

Hiding a smile into the sleeve of his raincoat, Donghyuck tells Seungmin to go on without him.

Seungmin must be that hungry because he bounces pretty quickly. But not without a pulling a very weird face when he looks over Donghyuck’s shoulder.

“Don’t stay out too late, Donghyuck!” he sing-songs, blasting away with an annoying laugh. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

What the fuck? Donghyuck just stares after him awkwardly, and when the last of his classmates wave a silly goodbye at him from where he’s standing at the door, he _realizes_.

“Why did you lie about already eating dinner?”

Turning around, Donghyuck is greeted by the one person he’s been looking forward to seeing the whole day, the whole week, the whole month. (And if he’s gonna get ahead of himself—maybe even his whole life, maybe even beyond that.)

Donghyuck grins at Mark, who comes close and zips up his coat for him.

“Did you really have to ask Hyunjin for my class schedule?” Donghyuck asks, ignoring Mark’s question in the most pointed way he can manage. “You know you could have asked me directly and spared us all the dramatics.”

Ah. There’s that cute laugh again—you know the one. “Now that wouldn’t be half as fun, would it?”

Donghyuck swats at Mark’s shoulder. The very same shoulder which now bears the weight of Donghyuck’s books.

“Hmmph!” He has to turn away; he doesn’t want to validate Mark, doesn’t want to give away the strange flush he feels spreading across his face, his neck.

“So cheeky tonight. What happened to my Mark who knows absolutely nothing about romance?”

“Eeey. Your Mark?”

“… You’re hopeless!”

Mark laughs again and Donghyuck can’t help but join him. Donghyuck can’t help the way his fingers tangle with Mark’s, can’t help the way he falls into step beside him—can’t help the way the both of them fall even more in love.

“Am I not, though?” asks Mark, when they’re halfway down the steps leading out Donghyuck’s building.

“Mmm? Not what?”

The way Mark slips out of Donghyuck’s grasp almost seems casual. But Donghyuck has known him almost his whole life; he remembers with startling clarity all of Mark’s most evasive tactics, dating back from when Mark denied each and every one of his deepest feelings from even himself.

“… I want to ask you. And I want to tell you that I don’t mean to pressure you—but that wouldn’t really be honest of me, huh?”

From where he’s standing on a much lower step, Mark looks up at Donghyuck. The warmth of his gaze, it makes Donghyuck want to burn, too. To rekindle the phoenix love nestled in the ash of Donghyuck’s ribs and to never let it flicker again.

“So, please. Be honest with me too. Am I just imagining and pretending all on my own? I know you hate it when I do that, but I hate it more when, well... Do you mean it when you say things like my Mark, my cutie—”

Mark’s hands are cold, already, when Donghyuck reaches for them. He rubs them briefly before shoving them in his coat pockets; now that Donghyuck’s made the initiative to stand on the same step, their eye contact doesn’t feel as awkward.

“My boyfriend,” Donghyuck finishes for him. It’s a word he’s never had use for in a long time, but the sound of it still makes Mark smile in the same helpless way. “I mean it when I say things like that.”

“Uh, great.”

“That’s it?” Donghyuck wants to kiss the pout he gets in response. “Good talk, hyung.”

Mark finally looks away. It always feels like such an accomplishment, to make the normally self-assured Mark falter.

It’s an even greater feeling, still, to be wanted by someone so sure and steadfast. Donghyuck can’t imagine how many times Mark must have turned this scenario over and over in his head—or maybe not?

The Mark in his arms feels so different from the Mark who quite literally made a cost-benefit analysis chart to make sense of his baby gay feelings.

“… you totally made fun of me in your head just now, didn’t you?”

Donghyuck laughs as Mark rests his big cute forehead on Donghyuck’s shoulder. It’s just like the dramas, and Mark doesn’t even know.

“Ughhh, stop!”

“Never.”

And Donghyuck means it in all the other ways he doesn’t quite know how to express. In his chest, his heart flutters open and Mark, his clever Mark who loves his poems and his stories, turns to the next page.

The thing about stories is that they don’t just belong to any one person. Once you put it to words, put it out to the world, it’s all fair game.

That is to say: it doesn’t take long for Hades to figure out the underlying meaning behind every little interaction between his son and favorite intern.

“Dad!” Mark whines behind his hands. They barely cover the wild blush on his face, his neck. “Don’t make it weird!”

How strange it is, to watch the intimidating Hades wiping away a fake tear. He’s only ever like this whenever it’s just the three of them left in the office. “Noooo! I’m not! I’m just, so happy…?”

Donghyuck doesn’t know what to do with his hands now that he’s kept all his things in his backpack. He meets Mark’s eyes in a silent plea for help.

“Well… I’m happy too?”

Donghyuck squirms. Mark coughs and his father starts clapping his hands delightedly.

“That’s great, son. Now, why don’t we all go eat dinner? It’ll be on me!”

Mark jumps up and out of the cubicle with such enthusiasm; it’s not like Hades is stingy, but is he really that keen on getting treated by his dad? “Okay nice!”

Later, when they’re all exiting the building, Donghyuck shyly tugs Hades to a stop, fingers lingering on one of his expensive sleeves.

Donghyuck glances briefly at Mark, who’s skipping excitedly ahead, in his own little world singing some trendy girl group song to himself.

“It’s just—a new thing. I really meant to tell you,” _but I wasn’t ready yet_ goes unsaid. But Hades only nods and Donghyuck remembers that this man really does know him for longer and better than most people do.

“… it won’t affect my work though,” he says, but to this Hades shushes him.

And in this moment, under the ambiguous light of the lampposts, Donghyuck pretends he really is the protagonist of his own melo.

Hades smiles and laughs and calls him son, says, “Silly boy! I already know.”

Before a comfortable silence can settle properly, Hades picks up his pace. But not before he makes what’s supposed to be a well-meaning joke—something about the seed and the sickle?

“It was pretty inevitable anyway,” concludes Hades, loud enough for Mark to hear. “We were all just waiting for it to happen.”

Mark looks back to smile at his dad. Not knowing where to look, Donghyuck turns his gaze at his feet.

“Hey, eyes on me.”

Donghyuck looks up to a frowning Renjun. “Donghyuck… How are you feeling? Do you need anything?”

“I’m okay! Just a bit distracted. You know, with the term ending and everything. The usual.”

“Hmmph! I think Donghyuck’s just upset that Mark can’t make it to our hangout. Again.”

“I mean, I’m pretty upset too, Jisung.” Chenle slides their milkshakes along the table and gives his boyfriend a good cheek pinch. “This time maybe you’re just projecting. No valid Mahae here, I think.”

Jeno, who they all thought had passed out on top of his open textbook, nods vigorously without opening his eyes. “I agree. OT6 just hits differently.”

Donghyuck slurps his milkshake to keep from saying something sappy himself.

Later, when Chenle finally takes his break and they all dig into their food, the conversation carries on like it always does during their weekly meetups.

Chenji’s shipping mania continues to be supported by hypeman Jaemin. Renjun steps in at random points to remind Donghyuck that he’s got someone on his corner and Jeno remains—well. There’s gotta be at least one neutral party to keep everything from going to shit, right?

The more Donghyuck catches up to them, the more he realizes that Mark hasn’t said a word about their relationship. And it’s not that Donghyuck means to do nothing about it, but it just happens that way.

Even after all these years, there’s a bit of particular advice that still sticks with Donghyuck: good things will come in time. It’s something Mark used to say long before they started dating the first time. Though Donghyuck would never show it, he always took those words to heart.

“For real, hyung,” says Jisung, leaning in as close as he can towards Donghyuck from across the table. “Is there really nothing new from you this week? I don’t mean this in a bad or even good way? But I just feel like something about you is… different?”

Donghyuck must look so dumbfounded because Jaemin reaches out to play with one of his hands.

Maybe he can afford to be a little bit honest today. “It’s kind of weird when we’re not all together, I guess.”

Just a little.

Being vague doesn't make Donghyuck a liar, does it?

Because it really is different, when it's just him and Mark. It's sweet and nice and _obvious_ … so if no one other than Hades notices the way Mark's schedule conveniently falls alongside Donghyuck's? That's on them, really.

"Does it bother you, though?" Mark asks instead of the usual invitation to stay the night.

He places his keys on the ceramic bowl by the door, all casual.

"Why would it?"

Donghyuck backs Mark up with even strides, giggling when the back of his boyfriend's head hits the door with a soft thump. The toes of their matching converse bump gently.

"I don't know. Just wondering if that's what's got you so distracted lately."

"Me?" Longing to reach out and touch ever since he got picked up from the office, Donghyuck brushes Mark's hair off his forehead. "Distracted?"

"We already talked about telling the gang after finals, so. I feel like I'm missing something and I don't know how to ask you about it?"

"Hey. I'm okay." Donghyuck takes Mark's face in his hands, tilting it up just so. Was Mark thinking about this the whole time?

"And we're okay. You wanna know what really got me distracted during our date?"

"Tell me." How the words rush out of Mark has Donghyuck's lips twitching, trying so hard not to laugh at how absurdly cute Mark can get.

"You," Donghyuck says, and it's still the truth. It always will be. "I kept thinking about what we would do when we got back, how our perfect night would end."

Teenage Mark would have kept blazing through, insistent and desperate to know everything. So eager to understand every thought and feeling in the way Donghyuck used to not care about.

"You," says Mark now, shaking his head and probably still bringing this up once he's got Donghyuck relaxed and in his bed. "You're still so shameless."

"And you still like it."

Mark is prettiest like this, flushed and just a little bit exasperated. So easy to tease with all those honest reactions.

Love, clear as day, is a good look on on him. That's something that's never changed.

"Oh no," Mark mumbles, pulling Donghyuck in even closer by the front of his coat. "I'm kinda tired. I don't know if I can walk you back tonight, too."

Donghyuck runs his thumb down Mark's cheek, feels more than sees the smile dimpling on his boyfriend's face.

He bumps their noses together gently. "Oh no… looks like I'm going to have to stay in. Again."

It's a familiar touch, hands trailing down his back. Thighs spread, fluttering open, open, open, until only warmth is bookmarked between them.

In his ear, lilting, _Isn't this the vision that you wanted?_

"Donghyuck, are you even listening to me?"

Sweat trickles down his thigh; legs folding awkwardly, just to fit. Light briefly blinds his eyes.

_Guess I'll never understand you now. Love is more than telling me you want it—_

"Ah, crap. Sorry Hyunjin. Kinda spaced out there."

He can't tell if Hyunjin is squinting so aggressively because of the sun now filtering in through the bus window, or because she's actually annoyed at him.

"So distracted that you barely noticed Carly Rae's best song on Dedicated?" She gestures at the earphones she just yanked out of their ears. "Don't tell me you were daydreaming about your boy toy again."

"And what of it?"

Gasp! "Wait, you didn't even fight me about _The Sound_? Hey—WAIT."

Donghyuck rolls his eyes when Hyunjin peers down the aisle and over their seats. It's not like she can see it, but it's not like Hyunjin would have reacted to his spite anyway.

"God, Jin-ah. Everyone's asleep, just spit it out."

"You guys finally fucked? No wonder you seem happier lately…" then Hyunjin's trailing off about how Donghyuck's totally betrayed the trust between him (himbo) and her (lesbian).

"I mean. Yeah, we did. You know I would have told you right away if we were just that. But we're not just… friends, anymore?"

"Wait a minute." Now Donghyuck knows for sure—the narrowing of those eyes is definitely because of annoyance. "Why are you telling me about this first?"

Instead of throwing some flat out excuse that not even his city friends have been free to hangout and sit down for a good talk, Donghyuck chooses to tell a very roundabout metaphor.

"Look. Do you remember that time you and Heejin fought in 2017?"

"... Yeah? It really wasn't that big of a deal, Donghyuck, I promise."

In Donghyuck's memory, it kind of was. Is. He still cringes at the way even he took sides and childishly thought that moment in time would signal the end of them.

Hyunjin slowly takes Donghyuck's hands in hers. "Everyone just blew it out of proportion. But we all joke about it now, you know we're okay."

Donghyuck hums. "I guess I've just been thinking a lot about the past? Since, you know. Mark."

"You're not going to fuck this up Donghyuck. It'll work out." The _this time_ goes unsaid, but not unheard.

"Maybe. I did grow up quite a bit." Donghyuck smirks. "Mark's gotten a lot more experienced too."

The punch Donghyuck gets to the shoulder is perhaps a bit deserved.

"... congrats, by the way. Sorry I didn't say it right away. I'm really happy for you guys." Hyunjin smiles, tilts her head just so.

It's sweet. Almost kittenish, really. A silly and stupid show of emotion that distracts Donghyuck from the pain spreading along his shoulder.

He closes his eyes. "God, I need to get a grip. Was I this annoying the first time we dated?"

Hyunjin just laughs and sticks an earphone back in his ear.

"So," says Seungmin after he calls out their usual order, "what's the matter with you and Mark this time?"

"First of all—wait, how did you know I was going to tell you about my boy problems?"

Donghyuck sings the last part of his question, squirming when Seungmin doesn't join along.

"When was the last time we hung out after class on a Friday?"

One of the phones smack dab on the middle of the table lights up.

Donghyuck smiles awkwardly as he leans forward to face his phone down. “That’s a fair observation.”

“Hey! I’m not mad or anything.” Under the table, Seungmin kicks at Donghyuck’s shin. “I’m happy you finally got your shit together. Well, for a good while, at least.”

The silence lasts until their food arrives. Seungmin pulls out that little puppy head tilt of his at their server—tonight it’s (quote) five star Michelin chef (end quote) Felix, who smiles back rather cutely. “Hey sunshine.”

The two of them are close, but out of all the people in Seungmin’s friend group, Felix is a bit…? A curious detail which Donghyuck stores for later interrogation purposes.

“Look. You guys aren’t fighting again, are you?”

Donghyuck jumps a little at the sudden ferocity in Seungmin’s tone.

“No?”

A pointed stare at the one buzzing phone. “Yeah, doesn’t seem like it.”

“So why does it still feel weird?”

“Even though I haven’t known you as long—”

“Actually! Aside from the fact that you’re the counselor friend, that’s also why I’m asking? Because I feel like everyone’s just biased by the whole childhood friends concept.”

“As I was _saying_ ,” Seungmin says as he cracks open a bottle a little too enthusiastically. “I’ve only heard stories about you guys. But it sounds like you’re doing that overthinking thing you hate. Like a total hypocrite clown.”

Donghyuck blinks. He’s never seen himself as the type to complicate. _Let’s just keep this simple._ “Oh. Am I?”

“Did you even talk about this weird feeling with Mark?”

“No?” Donghyuck stares at the phone, going off again. “Actually, I have a good reason for that. I really don’t want to fight again.”

“Well, if you’re gonna fight, then fight it out. Conflict is a part of life.” It’s kind of comforting coming from Seungmin, someone who has fought to keep the close friendships he has now.

“Yeah, but like. We’re older now. If we keep fighting about the same things, doesn’t that just mean we really won’t work out?”

Seungmin snorts. “You know I actually don’t know why you guys broke up in the first place, right? This isn’t me asking you to tell me, by the way. I still think the reasons don’t matter!”

“With Mark, they kinda do?” Everything does when it comes to his lovely Mark, enduring and steadfast.

“I… see. So, just to recap. You feel weird because, in a wild twist of events, you guys are actually going strong and are pretty happy together. You don’t want to tell Mark about it because… you’re afraid that he’ll take it the wrong way?”

Donghyuck winces. “So what do I do?”

“It’s not like Mark isn’t eager to talk to you. About anything.” Another pointed glance at the damn phone. Mark just doesn’t give up, does he?

“That’s just how he is.” That’s how the story is gonna go.

Seungmin groans. Then, with a strange sigh that has Donghyuck quietly thinking for the rest of the meal, he says, “Love is a two way street, Donghyuck. It doesn’t matter how much you think you’ve grown up on your own. Mark is trying for you, too. And as a fellow type A perfectionist nerd—a little feedback can go a long way.”

The next morning provides a strange opportunity in the form of a sudden shower.

Absolutely fucking delighted, Mark tells Donghyuck all about pathetic fallacy as he leads the way to his studio. Donghyuck trails balefully behind him, wondering not for the first time if Apollo really does hate him that much.

“I was planning on inviting you to visit this weekend, anyway,” says Mark as he unlocks his door. “So I guess the rain was pretty good timing?”

Donghyuck is still pouting. He grumbles, more to himself than to his boyfriend. “I really wanted to have an outside date today! And enjoy our day off in the sun!”

"Well, isn't this cool, too?" Mark's tone is steady, but Donghyuck can't help but notice the way his eyes waver—the way Mark is always watching for even the slightest shifts in the light.

When they were younger, Donghyuck had always found the habit cute.

"Nah, it sucks." If they were younger, Mark would have punched Donghyuck square on the shoulder. "I absolutely hate doing meaningful hobbies with you."

Ha. Mark's face definitely twitches at the dreaded h-word; Donghyuck knows where to look.

"Okaaaay. Let's get in there, you brat."

They don’t have the time to even take off their coats before Taeyong hounds on them.

"Oh, hyung! I thought you weren't coming to work today."

Donghyuck abruptly bows when Mark makes a vague hand gesture, but all Taeyong does is very visibly ignore Mark and holler for Johnny and Taeil and whoever else is at the office on a weekend.

Perhaps this is karma for all the times Donghyuck freaked out over the relationship drama that went down within his college block.

Gasping and floundering like a cute, yet bizarrely handsome fish, Taeyong points right at Donghyuck and says, “you’re actually bringing a friend over?”

Mark whines, suddenly straightening up and leaning over Donghyuck, as if he could simply block Taeyong, out of sight out of mind. “Yeah. Now can you please move so I can show Donghyuck around?”

All the commotion gets a few familiar faces peeking out of their doors. Donghyuck, undeterred, waves at Taeil when he peers into the hallway.

“Ooohhh.” Taeyong side steps but not without getting another word in. “You’re a lucky man, Donghyuck. He doesn’t let just anyone in!”

Not just figuratively, but literally as well, it seems. Is that what Mark meant about pathetic fallacy? Donghyuck feels kind of bad for tuning some of that out now.

He's no literature buff, but he does know this at the very least: something about the imagery of Mark holding open the door to his workspace like the sweet gentleman he is makes Donghyuck feel a certain kind of way.

"Yeah, I'm pretty lucky," says Donghyuck, the words unfurling easily once Mark makes eye contact with him.

And to the audience of everyone working at this particular hallway, Mark blows a very loud kiss Donghyuck's way.

Sometimes a kiss is just a kiss. Mark has always been so literal with the metaphors, after all.

Even now, it's still hard to tell with Mark, who is paradoxically an enigma despite his charming tendency to blurt out all his thoughts before they're even fully formed.

At least Donghyuck is used to it, the push and the pull. The cycle of their awkward, exciting little dance. He gets it a lot better now than he did before.

Somehow, everything falls back into place. As if the two of them together, hand in hand, was always meant to be, It's easier to believe it: that everything really will be alright.

Before he knows it, the days bleed forward, not without reason.

And in honor of completing his internship, Donghyuck is allowed to blast _Dedicated Side B_ in the office. Only once, of course, but at least no one bothers him until the last notes of NIDHCAA fade away.

“It was so fun working with you, Donghyuck.”

There's that familiar smile, making Donghyuck feel all warm and alive.

What a metaphor! How Donghyuck has never felt as engaged as he has before working in the office of the literal lord of the Underworld.

"Likewise, uncle." Donghyuck blinks. Oh, he just said—?

"This doesn't mean we aren't going to be seeing each other again, you hear me?"

He's about to make a lovable and on brand joke to deflect the sudden intensity that's fallen on the room like an inevitable winter, but then Mark's voice calls out for him. "Donghyuck? Are you ready?"

"... I think so, yeah. I'll be right out!"

Smiling at Hades, Donghyuck gives a tiny shy wave before he stands up to greet Mark out in the hallway. It's an echo of a habit he'd thought was lost to several cycles of seasons, a feeling of strange deja vu.

He remembers being thirteen and in love, always putting his best foot forward—what was the saying? Was that the saying? Best foot forward, foot in mouth.

Either way, whether he's in his teens or in his twenties, here he is again, still in love in the all the same ways with the very same person. Eager to impress, eager to monopolize Mark's attention all over again in a not as adolescent reprise.

"Oh, Duckie!" The nickname comes out so naturally that the silence that falls after only gets all the more unpleasant. Hades forges on anyway. "How is your mom? I haven't talked to her in a while. Everything holding up okay?"

Familiar smile, familiar words. Always the same questions and the same well meaning intentions.

"She's doing okay..." As Donghyuck explains how she's managed to make a complete recovery from the disaster that's been distressing Donghyuck since the term started, Hades makes a funny, bug eyed expression over Donghyuck's shoulder.

Donghyuck hears more than sees Mark approach, an intimate melody of movement that settles along the beat in his wrist.

"You're visiting her next weekend, right?" Mark asks, pressing a thumb against Donghyuck's fluttering pulse. Softly, Hades mumbles about how they're both still in his office, something about how _hand holding is still PDA?_

The strangeness of it all makes Donghyuck laugh. "Yeah, I am. I wanted to talk to you about that, actually..."

A little after Mark invited Donghyuck over to his studio, he had brought up the most curious thing. For the first and last time.

Donghyuck can't help but run the scenario over and over in his head, trying to catch any hidden meanings tucked into the syllables, the sounds.

"Us together now... it feels a bit different from the way we were before."

Mark inches even closer, moving down the bench. The toe of his converse nudges against Donghyuck's matching pair.

They're sitting at a bus stop, thigh pressed to thigh, a nostalgic scenario of what they were like back in their hometown.

The thing is: Donghyuck doesn't really agree, not exactly, but a part of him also wants to yield to Mark. It's not that big of a deal, really, that maybe it was Donghyuck who had been the one to throw a leg over the other's, the one who would curl their pinkies together.

Not that it matters, just one of those strangely specific sticky note details he's kept tacked onto his heart—but still. What is Mark trying to get Donghyuck sentimental about, this time?

It was nice then, Donghyuck wants to say. It is nice now. "It's not that different. You don't feel as different, to me."

Still the same, all these things Mark inspires in him: the feeling of being wanted by someone so sure of himself, someone so careful about the future and every moment forward. To be loved by someone who says he can see you there, with him, tomorrow.

"I don't—I know we're very different people," says Mark. "I don't see things the way you do. Literally. And it's not a bad thing, but you know we've had to learn, right?"

"Right." Donghyuck doesn't really get where this is going. Maybe he just doesn't understand, maybe he's just not as good at words, not in the way Mark is.

"... don't be like that." Mark's hand is warm in his. "Ey... what are we thinking?"

Donghyuck's thinking about how Mark used to be the most patient person he knew, about how Donghyuck himself has become so much hesitant, wary. He's thinking about how maybe they've both really grown up and out of each other—unable to meet in the middle.

Or maybe Donghyuck's just making up stories again, borrowing another bad habit that was supposed to be Mark's, the same way Donghyuck co-opts his clothes and his poems and his love.

"So unlike you," Mark teases. The way he says it reminds Donghyuck of how even Hyeyeon had teased him, after he had finally told their friends about the new-but-not-really relationship. _It's so funny, Duckie! How you try to act all cool and mature when Mark's involved._

Mark squeezes Donghyuck's hand, says, "but that's okay. I know you. I know _us_. We're going to be just fine."

"Are we?" Donghyuck winces at how doubting he sounds.

Mark laughs. "Yeah, duh. It's you and me. No one else."

"And look how that worked out?"

"... man, was I really this annoying, when we were kids?"

Donghyuck huffs as he stands up, stomping towards the gently opening doors of the next bus. "Bye Mark!"

“The stories we tell ourselves—sometimes we lock ourselves in really sad fates, you know?” Professor Kim is always honest, but never unkind.

“I don’t quite understand what you mean.”

Taking off his glasses to rub his eyes, the professor says, “I mean that we shouldn’t let our yesterday’s failures evolve into today’s fears.”

Donghyuck blinks. This is the most direct that Professor Kim has ever gotten.

“Wow, that’s. That’s deep.” He’s trying really, really hard not to stare out into space, as if there’s some hidden camera out there somewhere to emote very dramatically into.

“Anyway, I hope you consider this seriously as you continue to--"

"Donghyuck?"

It's Mark, of course. Mark, who's always conveniently there to fetch him nowadays. Here to meet him, here to take him home.

"Yeah, I'll be out!" Donghyuck turns from shooing Mark out the door back to his very amused professor.

"Your boyfriend comes by so consistently. Like clockwork, even?"

Donghyuck giggles. "Reliable, right?"

Professor Kim nods emphatically. "Swoon. I like him."

"Me too..." and before Donghyuck can continue on dreamily about the silly boy always waiting on him, Professor Kim waves him away, just like that.

"Just like that?" Mark asks about what imparting wisdom Donghyuck got from his favorite professor as they walk down the steps, hand in hand. "That's it?"

It takes a few awkward beats before Donghyuck realizes Mark is joking with him.

"Don't do this," Donghyuck says weakly, lands a few gentle punches on Mark's shoulder before he pulls away and evades.

Mark is laughing again, all starry eyed, looking up at Donghyuck from the bottom step of the stairs.

There's not much else to it, really. Donghyuck lets himself smile back.

“Congratulations, baby.” Mark won’t stop grinning.

"You didn't have to—to do all this!" Donghyuck, flustered, doesn't know what to do with the sweet sunflower bouquet. How are they going to have a fun night out if he doesn't even know where to keep the flowers?

Rolling his eyes, Mark stretches his hands out. "Of course I did. Graduating isn't something that just happens everyday."

Their hands brush and Donghyuck gets an idea. "Hey, we should take a picture!"

It's a rare moment, Donghyuck finally surprising Mark enough for him to go speechless, spluttering as Donghyuck presses a wet kiss on Mark's cheek, a moment for all his IG followers to ogle over later on.

Donghyuck stares at the stupid sticky note for so long that by the time he comes back to, Carly Rae’s singing about her _Heartbeat_ , a good half of her album already played through as he traced Mark’s goofy lines over and over.

Enough is enough, he tells himself as he reaches for his phone.

A part of him hopes that Mark’s already sleeping, but the part of him that’s restless only grows when Mark picks up only after a few beats.

“Hey,” Mark says instead of asking what’s wrong. “Thanks for calling me… couldn’t sleep.”

Donghyuck, on his part, doesn’t call him out on how rough his voice sounds. “Oh, me too. Thought that maybe talking to you would help.”

“Cute.” Donghyuck can hear the smile come through the soft syllables, the sweet sound. “But we could do something else, too—”

“Like what?”

That laughter, again. “Eager much?”

Donghyuck presses his flaming face onto his cool pillow.

“Do you ever shut up?”

Thank the Gods Hyunjin is sleeping over at Heejin’s place. Donghyuck seriously can’t take any of this anymore.

“Relax, hey,” says Mark. Some shuffling sounds. “We can talk, we can _not_ talk. Or whatever you want.”

Mark and his stupid sweet words, again.

“My what?”

Donghyuck smooshes his cheek on the pillow again. “Oh crap. Did I say that out loud?”

“Haha, yeah. It was cute though. Thanks?”

“For someone who loves to write, your vocabulary is so painfully limited? Who says _cute_ at _everything_?”

“Blah blah blah.” Mark laughs again. “You wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid.”

Donghyuck whines. “And if you _know_ , then why won’t you do something about it?”

“Sweet Jesus. Dude, like, I don’t even get if you like this?” Questioning noises. “Like, I understand that you bullying me like this is some kind of flirting? But is it some kind of foreplay thing you’re into now that we’re older?”

“What the fuck?” Donghyuck refuses to acknowledge any of that. “Just send me something, loser.”

He doesn’t actually expect Mark to do so, but—well.

Donghyuck doesn’t know where Mark learned to do all this, but he can get down with it. Or get off to it?

Whatever. Mark was right, after all. Lee Donghyuck? _Stupid_.

"You surprised him at work?"

Donghyuck squirms on his spinny chair. Hyunjin is using that tone with him, but for what?

"Ouch. Is it really that unbelievable?"

Seungmin makes a curious noise, from where he’s sitting on the floor. Even Hyeyeon goes _huh_.

"... actually." Hyunjin blinks. "Actually, wait. What?"

Walking home, to a teenage Donghyuck, was a romantic concept. Walking home with Mark was an opportunity to inch even closer, to poke and tease and to take whatever Mark offered, whenever he gave in.

"So cheesy, Donghyuck," Mark says now.

“You’re the one that asked what I was thinking!”

Donghyuck glares at Mark for a few seconds before they both burst into laughter.

And he kind of gets it, now, all of these moments that Mark get sentimental. No one else but Donghyuck would get it.

“Hey,” says Donghyuck. He waits until Mark is looking right at him. “I love you.”

Mark’s voice shakes like the flowers. “Love you too.”

Hanging out with the gang nowadays is a strange experience. Especially since it's almost as if they knew all along? Donghyuck doesn't really know what to make of that.

"So _clingy_ ," says Jaemin as he clings onto Jisung. Naturally, he gets rebuffed, visibly shoved away with a cute sounding huff the way only their maknae can get away with.

"Some of us are single. Can you guys keep it down?" Jaemin, undeterred, goes for his next target.

From where he's sitting snugly on Donghyuck's lap, Mark snipes back. "Jealousy is a disease."

Donghyuck can literally feel the way Mark tenses; it gets him snorting at the very physical display. Before he can have the chance to tease his boyfriend about it, Chenle beats him to the joke and mumbles something like, _ew_ , preening.

"Who is _teaching_ you this stuff?"

Jisung doesn't budge even though everyone stares at him. Charmingly enough, Chenle doesn't admit to anything.

It's another strange moment that gets Donghyuck laughing, again. And all these familiar beats that should comfort him in their predictability somehow still sound like a song he's never heard before.

Bringing Mark back home—going back home with Mark, rather—manages to feel both nostalgic and fresh at the same time. It's the same path home, but it somehow feels like they're both headed to a place beyond imagination, beyond myth.

Donghyuck tells Mark this, pressing his words onto a bony shoulder as he hides from the sun spilling in through the bus window.

"Man, I really thought I was the only nervous one here!" There goes that cute giggle again, the one that never fails to make Donghyuck feel like the funniest guy in the world. "It's been a while since we went home together... it's—well."

Donghyuck pouts when all Mark does is smile down at their hands, interlaced and resting on Mark's thigh. It's not like Mark could have seen it, but somehow he knows when to look up and catch the brief moment of vulnerability that Donghyuck doesn't manage to smooth away fast enough.

"I just meant it's nice," Mark says. His cute, smart Mark, who's so good with words. "I just missed this."

And Donghyuck, who prides himself in reading every move Mark makes, doesn't quite get it.

It's fine. At least he can say, "I missed it too."

Because he does. He did. All of that and more, all at once.

His heart flutters when Mark leans in again, this time to brush his bangs off his forehead. Mark's hand stutters from where it trails a path down the sides of his face, fingers brushing the white cord that tangles between them.

In their ears, Carly Rae reprises an old song, turns it anew.

"This is definitely the best song on _Side B_ ," Mark mumbles.

"God bless." Donghyuck gasps, eyes shining. "You're the only one I know who also appreciates _Stay Away_."

"So _easy_ , Donghyuck." Mark laughs again, spontaneously leans in to plant a kiss on Donghyuck's cheek. Donghyuck is too pleased by the affection to even bother coming up with a retort.

It shuts Donghyuck up long enough for the rest of the album to play, to loop all the way back to the start.

**Going Home**  
by Kim Yoon Ah

On the way back home  
I leave my heart to the setting sun.  
And I think about the work that you do  
and feel sad due to countless thoughts.

Since there’s no way of knowing  
what will happen tomorrow,  
I can only embrace your back  
and tell you that everything will be okay.

I feel like there’s more that I can do for you as I grow impatient,  
I feel sad for your heavy shoulders and long days.

I hope something good happens to you tomorrow.  
Because you deserve it.  
I hope you unload your burdens and become happy again.  
I earnestly pray for it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Writing this was very difficult considering all the things that have happened and are still happening, and even though I know I could have done better, I'm honestly really proud of myself for even finishing :')
> 
> This is an entry for the [Markhyuck Zine](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/themarkhyuckzine), please do check out the other works in the collection too <3


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